District Nursing
You are visiting a family who live in a two bedroom house with grandmother, mother & father and two children, a boy 5 and girl 7.
The mother works night shift as a nurse, the father is unemployed. The grandmother is ambulant short distances with a walking frame and has type 2 diabetes, osteoarthritis and a leg ulcer.
You are regularly visiting the family to help with the care of the grandmother who is waiting for a nursing home bed, you have been attending for 3 months and no bed has come up. The house is becoming quite stressful. The patient requires a lot of care and is demanding of her daughter’s time and argues with her daughter’s husband a lot about him not working and his drinking of alcohol.
You are very fond of the family and feel for the pressures that they are under.
On one particular day after you have showered and attended wound care at the end of the visit you talk to the husband who is sitting on the front step. He is drinking alcohol and it is 10am.
He said to you “Lately I have had trouble controlling my temper with the children.”
What are the ethical issues?
